Nature-Based Solutions as a concept began to be used at the beginning of this century. It refers to a set of actions that use nature’s innate attributes to face some climatic and social challenges, such as water scarcity, the risk of natural disasters, recovering from degradation or even giving life to urban spaces. In other words, it refers to solutions provided by nature itself that require human protection, management and eventual restoration for the conversation of all areas involved. Some concrete examples of Nature-Based Solutions that we can find in their natural condition and that act as a regulating entity in their own right are wetlands, mangroves, groundwater and forests near rivers, which help provide natural barriers against erosion, store carbon, water filters, and some even prevent sediments from reaching the waterways and contaminating them, as well as microorganisms that naturally degrade wastes or chemical compounds. By broadening the concept further, it can translate into non-traditional approaches to addressing environmental problems by harnessing natural capital. If we put it into practice, in Chile there is an area of 36.5 million hectares of soil with some degree of erosion (48.7% of the national territory), of which 18.1 million are in the categories of severe or very severe erosion (CIREN, 2010). According to information published by the BBC, the process of forming a couple of centimeters of soil naturally can take up to 500 years, hence the importance of urgently finding a solution, ideally natural, for the preservation of these soils. In the area of these solutions, we also find the microorganisms that act day by day in a constant task, but that go unnoticed because they cannot be detected with the naked eye. However, their role is key to the sustainability of natural processes. For example, when a soil is contaminated, after some time a natural recovery is generated in the area, since there are bacteria present in nature that are capable of degrading some components. Like any natural process, it can take decades, and to prevent soil contamination from increasing by leaps and bounds, the scientific community has found a technology to help accelerate it, a process known as bioremediation. The remediation of a land, through this technique, gives the possibility of recovering a contaminated site in a sustainable way and with low impact. Although soil is a scarce commodity in Chile, there are very few cases of soil bioremediation. One of them is in Punta Arenas, in the Magallanes Region, where 376 pits containing crude oil were cleaned up in an area of ENAP operations. The other experience was carried out in Puerto Montt, where a site that for decades was used as a fuel deposit by the Esso company was recovered. Work is currently under way to carry out a bioremediation process in Viña del Mar, on the land of Las Salinas, where there is soil contaminated by hydrocarbons.
Expert researchers from universities in the Valparaíso Region, in addition to foreign researchers, are closely following this process, which allows the recovery of soils in a safe and sustainable manner for people and the environment.
